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In this study, we used eye-tracking methodology for deeper understanding of the refutation text effect on online text comprehension. A refutation text acknowledges the reader's alternative conceptions about a phenomenon, refutes them and presents the correct conceptions. We tested two hypotheses about its facilitation effect: the coherence hypothesis (refutation text is more coherent than standard text, thus facilitating comprehension) and the elaboration hypothesis (refutation text involves deeper processing, thus facilitating comprehension). Forty university students read one refutation text and one non-refutation text about two science topics. Offline data confirmed that refutation text readers recall more scientific facts than non-refutation text readers. Online eye-tracking measures revealed both an increase and a decrease in reading time in response to the refutation statements. Topic-medial text sentences with the correct science facts were fixated for a shorter time when first encountered in the refutation text. Refutation statements, however, increased integrative processing at the end of each text paragraph, as indexed by longer look-back fixation times on topic-final sentences with the science concepts, as well as longer look-back fixation times directed to the refutation statements. These findings support the elaboration hypothesis and are discussed in the light of current accounts of the refutation effect for theory development and educational practice. Lay Description What is already known about this topic: Science texts are often challenging to read, especially when the reader has misconceptions about the topicand must undergo conceptual-change learning in order to successfully comprehend the text., A specific type of text, the refutation text, mayact as a powerful resource in facilitating conceptual change, but findings from process-oriented investigations have been inconclusive with respect to its efficacy in this regard., What this paper adds: Refutation statements lead to faster processing of scientific facts that contradict commonly held misconceptions during the first-pass reading., Refutation statements also encourage readers' later integrative processing during rereading,to monitor and ensure resolution of the conflict between their own conceptions and the conceptual information contained within the text., Implications for practice and/or policy: Immediate introduction of new science concepts in an expository text may not benefit readers' comprehension when they have existing misconceptions within the relevant knowledge domain., The use of sentences explicitly refuting readers' misconceptions has the potential to induce and sustain the conscious and deliberate processing that is required for them to become aware of the conceptual conflict, increasing their likelihood of resolving it., Update made on 05 November 2016, after first online publication: Since the publication of this article, a Practitioner Notes section has been implemented for this journal. This article has been updated with the Practitioner Notes section. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The ability to measure cognitive load in the workplace provides several opportunities to improve workplace learning. In recent years, virtual reality (VR) has seen an increase in use for training and learning applications due to improvements in technology and reduced costs. This study aims to focus on the use of simulation task load index (SIM-TLX), a recently developed self-reported measure of cognitive load for virtual environments to measure cognitive load while undertaking tasks in different environments. Design/methodology/approach: The authors conducted a within-subject design experiment involving 14 participants engaged in digit-recall n-back tasks (1-back and 2-back) in two VR environments: a neutral grey environment and a realistic industrial ozone facility. Cognitive load was then assessed using the SIM-TLX. Findings: The findings revealed higher task difficulty for the 2-back task due to higher mental demand. Furthermore, a notable interaction emerged between cognitive load and different virtual environments. Research limitations/implications: This study relied solely on an n-back task and SIM-TLX self-report measure to assess cognitive load. Future studies should consider including ecologically valid tasks and physiological measurement tools such as eye-tracking to measure cognitive load. Practical implications: Identifying cognitive workload sources during VR tasks, especially in complex work environments, is considered beneficial to the application of VR training aimed at improving workplace learning. Originality/value: This study provides unique insights into measuring cognitive load from various sources as defined by the SIM-TLX sub-scales to investigate the impact of simulated workplace environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban forests, crucial to urban ecosystems, are increasingly threatened by the challenges of urbanization, such as deteriorating thermal environments and declining air quality. Despite their recognized benefits to city dwellers' quality of life, a systematic understanding of the impact of these environmental factors on public psychophysiological well-being in recreational sites is a notable gap in the literature. The objective of this research was to bridge this gap by examining the effects of the thermal environment and air quality in urban forests on the public's perception, offering scientific evidence to inform environmental optimization and health management strategies for urban parks, essential for sustainable urban development and public health. Three urban parks in Fuzhou, Fujian Province, namely Fuzhou National Forest Park, Xihu Park, and Jinniushan Sports Park, were selected as research sites. Environmental monitoring and questionnaire surveys were conducted at 24 recreation places from October to December 2020, collecting temperature, humidity, and wind speed; the atmospheric composition includes PM2.5, PM10, negative oxygen ion, and psychophysiological data from the public. Multivariate statistical methods were employed to assess the environmental characteristics of different recreation places types and their impact on public health. The findings reveal that environmental factors explained 1.9% to 11.8% of the variation in physiological and psychological responses, mainly influenced by temperature, wind speed, and negative oxygen ions. Forests and waterfront recreation places significantly outperform canopy and open recreation places in promoting mental invigoration, stress relief, emotional tranquility, and attention restoration. Environmental monitoring results indicate that favorable meteorological conditions and good air quality are crucial for enhancing the service functions of recreation places. Notably, the positive correlation between a negative air ion concentration and psychological well-being provides a novel perspective on understanding the health benefits of urban forests. The thermal environment and air quality of urban recreation places exert a significant influence on the psychophysiological status of the public. Increasing green coverage, improving water body environments, and rationally planning recreation places layout are of great theoretical and practical significance for enhancing the environmental quality and service functions of urban forests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In today's knowledge economy, it is critical to make decisions based on high-quality evidence. Science-related decision-making is thought to rely on a complex interplay of reasoning skills, cognitive styles, attitudes, and motivations toward information. By investigating the relationship between individual differences and behaviors related to evidence-based decision-making, our aim was to better understand how adults engage with scientific information in everyday life. First, we used a data-driven exploratory approach to identify four latent factors in a large set of measures related to cognitive skills and epistemic attitudes. The resulting structure suggests that key factors include curiosity and positive attitudes toward science, prosociality, cognitive skills, and openmindedness to new information. Second, we investigated whether these factors predicted behavior in a naturalistic decision-making task. In the task, participants were introduced to a real science-related petition and were asked to read six online articles related to the petition, which varied in scientific quality, while deciding how to vote. We demonstrate that curiosity and positive science attitudes, cognitive flexibility, prosociality and emotional states, were related to engaging with information and discernment of evidence reliability. We further found that that social authority is a powerful cue for source credibility, even above the actual quality and relevance of the sources. Our results highlight that individual motivating factors toward information engagement, like curiosity, and social factors such as social authority are important drivers of how adults judge the credibility of everyday sources of scientific information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Objectives: Imaging studies are often an integral part of patient evaluation and serve as the primary means of communication between radiologists and referring physicians. This study aimed to evaluate brain Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) reports and to determine whether these reports follow a standardized or narrative format. Methods: A series of 466 anonymized MRI reports from an academic hospital were downloaded from the Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) in portable document format (pdf) for the period between August 2017 and March 2018. Two hundred brain MRI reports, written by four radiologists, were compared to a structured report template from the Radiology Society of North America (RSNA) and were included, whereas MR-modified techniques, such as MRI orbits and MR venography reports, were excluded (n = 266). All statistical analyses were conducted using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) statistical software (version 16.4.1, MedCalc Software). Results: None of the included studies used the RSNA template for structured reports (SRs). The highest number of brain-reported pathologies was for vascular disease (24%), while the lowest was for infections (3.5%) and motor dysfunction (5.5%). Radiologists specified the Technique (n = 170, 85%), Clinical Information (n = 187, 93.5%), and Impression (n = 197, 98.5%) in almost all reports. However, information in the Findings section was often missing. As hypothesized, radiologists with less experience showed a greater commitment to reporting additional elements than those with more experience. Conclusions: The SR template for medical imaging has been accessible online for over a decade. However, many hospitals and radiologists still use the free-text style for reporting. Our study was conducted in an academic hospital with a fellowship program, and we found that structured reporting had not yet been implemented. As the health system transitions towards teleservices and teleradiology, more efforts need to be put into advocating standardized reporting in medical imaging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Assessing anthropomorphic tendency in relation to real estate purchase decisions and analysing the elements of friendliness, aggressiveness, pleasure and arousal as a link to the spatial memory of the consumer. This study aims to help brands and advertisers in the real estate industry to create meaningful consumer relationships by using elements that are associated with positive spatial experience. By formulating a detailed questionnaire with adapted variables from proven research and a multilayered approach of theoretic and practical analysis, this paper situates the identified variables in the plane of space and customer experience. Design/methodology/approach: By using structural equation modeling, this study analyses a sample data of 411 consumers and their response to elements of housing. Findings: The findings of this study showed that variables of friendliness, aggressiveness, pleasure and arousal significantly impact consumer's real estate purchase decision; however, anthropomorphic tendency does not have a significant impact. Through theoretical analysis, it was found that spatial memory may have a role in the visual and display of the variables. Originality/value: The merit of this paper lies in the discussion it has raised with regard to the intersection between theoretics of space and the chosen variables. In the field of business and management, often philosophical implications of spatiality may not be actively associated with numerical computation. This paper not only looks at brand anthropomorphism's impact on real estate purchase decisions but also looks at friendliness and other mentioned variables as significantly impacting purchase decisions and linked to memory, space and affiliation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contextual vocabulary acquisition, second language learners address both morphological and contextual cues to infer the meanings of novel words. The study investigated cognitive strategies and their eye movement correlates in contextual vocabulary inferencing task. A sample of 30 healthy participants with normal or corrected to normal vision read an Intermediate-level text in English, aiming to define the meaning of 10 low-frequency words embedded in the text. Based on both unstructured and structured post-hoc reports, we attributed the inferencing process either to word-level processing, context-level processing, or discourse-level processing strategy. Eye movements were recorded on the target word and on the target word clause areas of interest. Inferencing success was associated with increased first fixation duration on the target word both for word- and context-level processing strategy, and increased dwell time on the target word clause for context-level processing strategy. Our findings emphasize the role of both morphological and contextual processing in vocabulary inferencing task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last few years, a large number of studies have been conducted on the monitoring of human behavior remaining beyond conscious control. One area of application for such monitoring systems is lie detection. The most popular method currently used for this purpose is polygraph examination, which has proven its usefulness in the field and in laboratories, but it is not without its drawbacks. Technological advances in data acquisition and automated analysis have ensured that contactless tools are in high demand in security fields like airport screening or pre-employment procedures. As a result, there has been a shift in interest away from traditional polygraph examinations toward the analysis of facial expressions, voice, and speech patterns, as well as eye-tracking signals to detect deceptive behavior. In this paper, we focus on the last aspect, offer a comprehensive overview of two distinct lie detection methodologies based on eye tracking, and examine the commonly used oculomotor feature analysis. Furthermore, we explore current research directions and their results within the context of their potential applications in the field of forensics. We also highlight future research prospects, suggesting the utilization of eye tracking and scan path interpretation methodologies as a potential fully functional alternative for the conventional polygraph in the future. These considerations refer to legal and ethical issues related to the use of new technology to detect lies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper intends to explore the relationship between participants' eye fixations (a measure of attention) and durations (a measure of concentration) on areas of interest within a range of online articles and their levels of information discernment (a sub-process of information literacy characterising how participants make judgements about information). Design/methodology/approach: Eye-tracking equipment was used as a proxy measure for reading behaviour by recording eye-fixations, dwell times and regressions in males aged 18–24 (n = 48). Participants' level of information discernment was determined using a quantitative questionnaire. Findings: Data indicates a relationship between participants' level of information discernment and their viewing behaviours within the articles' area of interest. Those who score highly on an information discernment questionnaire tended to interrogate the online article in a structured and linear way. Those with high-level information discernment are more likely to pay attention to an article's textual and graphical information than those exhibiting low-level information discernment. Conversely, participants with low-level information discernment indicated a lack of curiosity by not interrogating the entire article. They were unsystematic in their saccadic movements spending significantly longer viewing irrelevant areas. Social implications: The most profound consequence is that those with low-level information discernment, through a lack of curiosity in particular, could base their health, workplace, political or everyday decisions on sub-optimal engagement with and comprehension of information or misinformation (such as fake news). Originality/value: Ground-breaking analysis of the relationship between a persons' self-reported level of information literacy (information discernment specifically) and objective measures of reading behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is controversial whether sarcasm processing should go through literal meaning processing. There is also a lack of eye movement evidence for Chinese sarcasm processing. In this study, we used eye movement experiments to explore the processing differences between sarcastic and literal meaning in Chinese text and whether this was regulated by sentence complexity. We manipulated the variables of complexity and literality. We recorded 33 participants' eye movements when they were reading Chinese text and the results were analyzed by a linear mixed model. We found that, in the early stage of processing, there was no difference between the processing time of the sarcastic meaning and the literal meaning of simple remarks, whereas for complex remarks, the time needed to process the sarcastic meaning was longer than that needed to process the literal meaning. In the later stage of processing, regardless of complexity, the processing time of the sarcastic meaning was longer than that of the literal meaning. These results suggest that sarcastic speech processing in Chinese is influenced by literal meaning, and the effect of literal meaning on sarcastic remarks is regulated by complexity. Sarcastic meaning was expressed differently in different stages of processing. These results support the hierarchical salience hypothesis of the serial modular model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual attention of construction workers is closely related to their safety performance. Identifying and understanding safety signs on workplace effectively is beneficial to improve visual attention. This study focuses on exploring the influencing mechanism of construction safety sign features on visual attention of construction workers using the eye-tracking technology, in order to improve visual attention and workplace safety performance through optimizing the construction safety signs. A theoretical model of influencing mechanism of safety sign features on visual attention was constructed based on visual information processing theory. To verify the theoretical model, an experiment was conducted as follows: 28 pictures of safety signs including visual and cognitive features were shown on the computer screen, then eye movement data from 41 subjects was obtained using EyeLink1000 Plus. Statistical test methods were employed to analyze the relationship between safety sign features and eye-tracking metrics. The statistical results of theoretical model indicate that, among visual features, red and rectangular safety signs can reduce cognitive load of first fixation, green signs can reduce cognitive difficulties, however visual attention is not closely related to auxiliary words. Among the cognitive features, unfamiliar signs require more cognitive effort, while no significant difference exists in visual attention of different levels of concreteness and sematic closeness. This study provides theoretical and practical basis for improving construction workers' visual attention through optimizing visual and cognitive features of construction safety signs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When using the flipped classroom method, students are required to come to the lesson after having prepared the basic concepts. Thus, the effectiveness of the lecture depends on the students' preparation. With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it has become difficult to examine student preparations and to predict student course failures with limiting variables. Learning analytics can overcome this limitation. In this study, we aimed to develop a predictive model for at-risk students who are at risk of failing their final exam in an introductory anatomy course. In a five-week online flipped anatomy course, students' weekly interaction metrics, quiz scores, and pretest scores were used to design a predictive model. We also compared the performances of different machine learning algorithms. According to the results, the Naïve Bayes algorithm showed the best performance for predicting student grades with an overall classification accuracy of 68% and with at-risk prediction accuracy of 71%. These results can be used as a traffic light project wherein the "at-risk" group will receive the red light, and thus, will require more effort to engage with the content and they might need to solve the quiz tests after an individual study period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present study, we used a scanpath approach to investigate reading processes and factors that can shape them in monolingual Russian‐speaking adults, 8‐year‐old children, and bilingual Russian‐speaking readers. We found that monolingual adults' eye movement patterns exhibited a fluent scanpath reading process, representing effortless processing of the written material: They read straight from left to right at a fast pace, skipped words, and regressed rarely. Both high‐proficiency heritage‐language speakers' and second graders' eye movement patterns exhibited an intermediate scanpath reading process, characterized by a slower pace, longer fixations, an absence of word skipping, and short regressive saccades. Second‐language learners and low‐proficiency heritage‐language speakers exhibited a beginner reading process that involved the slowest pace, even longer fixations, no word skipping, and frequent rereading of the whole sentence and of particular words. We suggest that unlike intermediate readers who use the respective process to resolve local processing difficulties (e.g., word recognition failure), beginner readers, in addition, experience global‐level challenges in semantic and morphosyntactic information integration. Proficiency in Russian for heritage‐language speakers and comprehension scores for second‐language learners were the only individual difference factors predictive of the scanpath reading process adopted by bilingual speakers. Overall, the scanpath analysis revealed qualitative differences in scanpath reading processes among various groups of readers and thus adds a qualitative dimension to the conventional quantitative evaluation of word‐level eye‐tracking measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning from expository texts demands the processing of metatextual cues (rhetorical devices) and the activating of reading strategies. The main objective of this study was to examine whether profiting from written metatextual cues to launch reading strategies needs higher level of rhetorical competence than profiting from oral cues. Specifically, this study addresses two questions: (1) Is there a gap between the sensitivity to oral versus written metatextual cues depending on the student's reading skill level? (2) Do the reader's rhetorical competence, general reading comprehension, and decoding levels interact with the processing of each type of metatextual cue? Three hundred sixty‐seven students (11–13 years old) summarized an expository text after reading it under one of the following four conditions: with written cues, with oral cues, with both cues combined, or with no cues. The less skilled readers who received oral or combined cues provided better summaries (they selected and organized the main ideas better) than the less skilled readers who received written cues or no cues. However, the performance of the more skilled readers was equal under the conditions with written cues, oral cues, and combined cues; these three groups outperformed the readers from the no‐cues condition group. A multicategorical moderator analysis showed that following written cues demanded higher levels of general comprehension and rhetorical competence than following oral and combined cues. These data confirm that rhetorical competence is a specific capability for processing, especially written metatextual cues, and for overcoming the gap between the sensitivity to oral versus written cues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Drawing on theories of purposeful reading, this study explored task conditions that support fifth graders' selective reading of documents in order to answer questions. More specifically, we investigated whether promoting students' elaboration of their task model increases task performance. Methods: Participants had to answer series of questions by searching documents for the relevant information. Half the participants received a task model prompt, and half received a control prompt. Participants' eye movements were recorded during text search, in order to investigate more precisely the effect of an enhanced task model. Results: Participants provided more correct answers in the task model condition than in the control condition, but there was no difference in response time. Unexpectedly, eye movement analysis did not reveal any differences between conditions concerning the number of visits and visit time to relevant and irrelevant areas of the document. Conclusions: A better representation of the information to be searched facilitated students' identification of relevant information. Unexpectedly, however, the task conditions did not result in any significant difference in students' patterns of document search. Highlights: What is already know about this topicExperienced readers adapt their behaviour to task demands.Purposeful reading is challenging for children, but little is known about how to support them. What this paper addsThis study highlights the importance of constructing a coherent task model in order to answer specific questions from textThis study reports eye movement data about the selective reading patterns of a population seldom studied in this domain (i.e., children). Implications for theory, policy or practiceThis study offers a means to enhance purposeful reading that is easily applicable in a classroom situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on literacy has become universal and is essential for researchers of various disciplines, educators, and psychologists. For this article, we examined the most important methodological challenges that arise when conducting literacy research across languages, some of which have long been acknowledged in the relevant literature. Specifically, we focused on challenges related to research on word reading, spelling, passage comprehension, and writing, ranging from the target skills, constructs, and assessment issues to the matching of the samples and measurement and factorial invariance issues. We conclude that although theoretical and applied issues have been addressed in the literature, to date, this has happened only with limited relevance for reading and writing research across languages. The discussion provides some relevant evidence from a neuroscience perspective to promote useful insights and greater methodological rigor in literacy research across languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The present study analysed how relevance instructions affect eye movement patterns and the performance in a summary task of six expository texts. Methods: Forty‐one undergraduate students participated in the experiment; half of them were instructed to make an oral summary of the main ideas focusing on the 'why' question that appeared at the end of the first paragraph (specific relevance instruction), while the other half were instructed to make an oral summary of the main ideas of the text (general relevance instruction). Results: Eye movement patterns revealed that specific instructions promoted more and longer fixations and more regressions for relevant information than general instructions. A higher percentage of words in the summary task related to relevant information was recalled when readers received specific instructions. Conclusions: These findings suggest that relevance instructions influence how readers enact strategies to meet their reading goals and how these strategies are reflected on memory. Highlights: What is already known about this topicA reading goal is formed on the basis of the reader's personal intentions and given intentions, such as a given reading perspective.Readers modulate their attention to task‐relevant content in response to specific task instructions.There are strong evidences showing that eye tracking offers useful and accurate data about online processes during reading. What this paper addsThe type of relevance instruction influences how readers enact strategies to meet their reading goals, and these strategies have an influence on memory.Readers who receive a specific relevance instruction show a strategic reading behaviour, which is also reflected in the quality of their recall.Readers who adopt a selective strategy tend to use it in a consistent way across different texts and topics. Implications for theory, policy or practiceThere is a benefit in combining online and offline measures to examine the influence of relevance instructions on texts' strategic processing.The ability to distinguish relevant from irrelevant content in response to specific task instructions is an important instance of a competency that readers must develop in order to become efficient and effective as readers and learners.Assigning a comprehension perspective through relevance instructions should increase learning of perspective‐relevant information from expository materials, such as textbooks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study employed an eye tracking technology to explore university students' visual attention and learning performance while learning Japanese using an interactive manga-based e-book. The developed e-book consisted of 8 pages accompanied by 13 annotations with both text and graphical formats. The subjects consisted of 60 students whose eye movements were tracked and recorded by the eye tracking system. These students came from the applied foreign language department in a northern university in Taiwan, of which 30 were assigned to high prior knowledge (PK) group and the other 30 were assigned to low PK group. Eye tracking measurements, including total contact time, number of fixations, latency of first fixation, and number of clicks on the defined regions of interest of the two groups were compared to indicate their visual attention. The results revealed that overall students spent more time on reading text and annotation than graphic information. The high PK students showed longer fixation durations on the texts, while the low PK students showed longer fixation durations on the graphics and annotations. Meanwhile, the low PK students used more clicks to look up underlined annotations whenever they didn't know words or phrases on the e-book. In addition, with respect to the latency of the first fixation, the graphic captured the attention faster than the text because of the size and its appeal to the students. Further analysis of saccade paths indicated that the low PK students showed more inter-scanning transitions not only between the text dialog and the annotation zone but also within annotation zone. Finally, the results of reading comprehension pretest and posttest found that there was a significant difference in learning outcomes between each PK group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous eye-tracking studies suggest that when resolving the meaning of sarcastic utterances in a text, readers often initiate fixations that return to the sarcastic utterance from subsequent parts of the text. We used a modified trailing mask paradigm to examine both the role of these look-back fixations in sarcasm comprehension and whether there are individual differences in how readers resolve sarcasm. Sixty-two adult participants read short paragraphs containing either a literal or a sarcastic utterance while their eye movements were recorded. The texts were presented using a modified trailing mask paradigm: sentences were initially masked with a string of x's and were revealed to the reader one at a time. In the normal reading condition, sentences remained visible on the screen when the reader moved on to the next sentence; in the masked condition, the sentences were replaced with a mask. Individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC) and the processing of emotional information were also measured. The results showed that readers adjusted their reading behavior when a mask prevented them from re-examining the text content. Interestingly, the readers' compensatory strategies depended on spatial WMC. Moreover, the results showed that the ability to process emotional information was related to less processing effort invested in resolving sarcasm. The present study suggests that look-backs are driven by a need to re-examine the text contents but that they are not necessary for the successful comprehension of sarcasm. The strategies used to resolve sarcasm are mediated by individual differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sourcing involves interrogating historical documents, asking questions about their attributes to determine their relation to the historical event or time period under study. In this article, a university researcher and a sixth‐grade teacher describe a set of heuristics that the teacher developed for supporting her students' sourcing of historical texts. The heuristics derive from findings of a longitudinal case study that the researcher conducted about the teacher's learning to shift to a disciplinary literacy approach in her social studies classroom, as well as the teacher's insights about her own process of learning to scaffold her students' sourcing. Considering the limited resources for addressing elementary teachers' sourcing instruction, these heuristics are offered so other teachers can adopt and adapt them to their own teaching contexts to meet the specific, diverse needs of their students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This study investigated the effects of author expertise and content relevance on Norwegian secondary school students’ (n = 190) selection, processing, and use of multiple documents. Participants were presented with documents that pertained to more or less familiar topics, and received brief instructions that highlighted the importance of source credibility or content relevance, whereas those in a control group just received a general task instruction (to write a letter to the editor about their assigned topic). Results showed that content relevance had strong and nearly identical effects on students’ selection, processing, and use of documents independently of whether the topic was more or less familiar, whereas they valued author expertise to a greater extent when the topic was less familiar. Moreover, content relevance had a strong effect on students’ selection, processing, and use of documents independently of instructional condition, whereas brief instructions to focus on source credibility increased the value placed on author expertise when students selected, processed, and used documents for the less familiar topic. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to show how analysing sales flyers with a combination of eye tracking, measurement of emotions, interview and content analysis can give an in-depth understanding on how different design aspects influence sales flyers’ effectiveness as a communication tool. The paper shows the relationship between different sales flyer design principles and a person’s preference towards it, as well as the intent to read it.Design/methodology/approach The paper chose for pilot study using eye tracking and emotions measurement to analyse retail sales flyers. In addition, interviews and content analysis were conducted to fully understand which aspects of sales flyer design influenced consumers.Findings The paper’s main findings are that sales flyers that evoke more positive emotions are prone to be chosen, and the attention and the view time of content pages is related to the number of elements on the page, page coherence and the location of the offers.Research limitations/implications This research uses eye tracking were sales flyers are shown on screen, which is not a natural way to read sales flyers. Future research should aim to test this methodology and prepositions in the natural environment.Practical implications The paper includes implications for designing better sales flyers.Originality/value To the authors’ knowledge, sales flyers have never been studied with a research design combining eye tracking, measurement of emotions, interview, content analysis and preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigated the effect of text highlighting on online processing and memory of central and peripheral information. We compared processing time (using eye-tracking methodology) and recall of central and peripheral information for three types of highlighting: (a) highlighting of central information, (b) highlighting of peripheral information and (c) no highlighting. Results indicate that highlighting central information decreased the amount of rereading of peripheral information, whereas highlighting peripheral information increased the amount of rereading of peripheral information. Processing and recall of central information did not differ across highlighting conditions but were higher than the processing and recall of peripheral information (i.e., centrality effects). These findings suggest that highlighting influences processing of text but that this influence occurs after initial processing, interacts with centrality and is strongest for text information that is relatively peripheral to the overall coherence and meaning of the text. Proficient readers apparently selectively process and store central information regardless of what is highlighted in the text. Highlights The following issues are already known about the paper's topic: Text highlighting is a common useful device that students use for coping with reading large amounts of texts., In most cases, reading time is longer, and memory is better when information is highlighted than when it is not., In most cases, reading time is longer and memory is better when information is central than when it is not central., This paper adds the following: Text highlighting and text centrality affect rereading time but not initial reading time of textual information., The reading and memory of central information are not affected by highlighting., Rereading is more frequent when peripheral information is highlighted than when it is not., Implications for practice and/or policy: Students should be practised in highlighting central or important information for their study; highlighting peripheral information results in a wasting of time in rereading unimportant information; this is especially relevant for studying under time pressure, when highlighting is mostly needed and helpful., Proficient adult readers succeed in attending important information even when less-important information is highlighted; this notion is encouraging regarding texts that are highlighted in an inadequate manner., Less proficient and/or young readers should receive special care with regard to the quality of highlighting in their texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research suggests that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulties with inference generation in reading tasks. However, most previous studies have examined how well children understand a text after reading or have measured on-line reading behavior without response to questions. The aim of this study was to investigate the online strategies of children and adolescents with autism during reading and at the same time responding to a question by monitoring their eye movements. The reading behavior of participants with ASD was compared with that of age-, language-, nonverbal intelligence-, reading-, and receptive language skills-matched participants without ASD (control group). The results showed that the ASD group were as accurate as the control group in generating inferences when answering questions about the short texts, and no differences were found between the two groups in the global paragraph reading and responding times. However, the ASD group displayed longer gaze latencies on a target word necessary to produce an inference. They also showed more regressions into the word that supported the inference compared to the control group after reading the question, irrespective of whether an inference was required or not. In conclusion, the ASD group achieved an equivalent level of inferential comprehension, but showed subtle differences in reading comprehension strategies compared to the control group. Autism Res 2017, 10: 888-900. © 2016 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adults with High Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) viewed scenes with people in them, while having their eye movements recorded. The task was to indicate, using a button press, whether the pictures were normal, or in some way weird or odd. Oddities in the pictures were categorized as violations of either perceptual or social norms. Compared to a Typically Developed (TD) control group, the ASD participants were equally able to categorize the scenes as odd or normal, but they took longer to respond. The eye movement patterns showed that the ASD group made more fixations and revisits to the target areas in the odd scenes compared with the TD group. Additionally, when the ASD group first fixated the target areas in the scenes, they failed to initially detect the social oddities. These two findings have clear implications for processing difficulties in ASD for the social domain, where it is important to detect social cues on-line, and where there is little opportunity to go back and recheck possible cues in fast dynamic interactions. Autism Res 2016, 9: 879-887. © 2015 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the study was to determine the effect of a temperature of 29°C on performance in tasks involving different cognitive demands and to assess the effect on perceived performance, subjective workload, thermal comfort, perceived working conditions, cognitive fatigue, and somatic symptoms in a laboratory with realistic office environment. A comparison was made with a temperature of 23°C. Performance was measured on the basis of six different tasks that reflect different stages of cognitive performance. Thirty-three students participated in the experiment. The exposure time was 3.5 h in both thermal conditions. Performance was negatively affected by slightly warm temperature in the N-back working memory task. Temperature had no effect on performance in other tasks focusing on psychomotor, working memory, attention, or long-term memory capabilities. Temperature had no effect on perceived performance. However, slightly warm temperature caused concentration difficulties. Throat symptoms were found to increase over time at 29°C, but no temporal change was seen at 23°C. No effect of temperature on other symptoms was found. As expected, the differences in thermal comfort were significant. Women perceived a temperature of 23°C colder than men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research suggests that multiple representations can improve science reading comprehension. This facilitation effect is premised on the observation that readers can efficiently integrate information in text and diagram formats; however, this effect in young readers is still contested. Using eye-tracking technology and sequential analysis, this study investigated students' reading strategies and comprehension of illustrated biology texts in relation to adult readers' performance. The target population was fourth-grade students with high reading ability, and the control group was university students. All participants read a biology article from an elementary school science textbook containing two illustrations, one representational and one decorative. After the reading task, participants answered questions on recognition, textual, and illustration items. Unsurprisingly, the university students outperformed the younger students on all tests; however, more interestingly, eye movement patterns differed across the two groups. The adult readers demonstrated bidirectional reading pathways for both text and illustrations, whereas the fourth graders' eye fixations only went back and forth within paragraphs in the text and between the illustrations, but made fewer references to both text and illustration. This suggests that regardless of their high reading ability, fourth-grade students' visual literacy is not mature enough to perceive connections between corresponding features of different representations crucial to reading comprehension. Despite differences in cognitive processes between adult readers and young readers, high-ability young readers still have certain capabilities in reading comprehension. The results of sequential analysis showed that they looked back to previous paragraphs frequently, indicating that they were monitoring their comprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated the online and offline effects of learner and instructional characteristics on conceptual change of a robust misconception in science. Fifty-nine undergraduate university students with misconceptions about evolution were identified as espousing evaluativist or non-evaluativist epistemic beliefs in science. Participants were randomly assigned to receive a traditional or refutational text that discussed a misconception in evolution and a general comprehension or elaborative interrogation reading goal. Participants' cognitive and metacognitive processes while reading were measured using a think-aloud protocol. Postreading, participants' correct and incorrect conceptual knowledge were separately assessed with a transference essay. Results showed that text structure and reading goals affected cognitive conflict, coherence-building and elaborative processing while reading and promoted correct conceptual knowledge included in essays but failed to affect the inclusion of misconceptions. Further, participants with evaluativist epistemic beliefs engaged in fewer comprehension monitoring processes and were more likely to adapt their coherence-building processes according to reading goals than their non-evaluativist counterparts, but epistemic belief groups did not differ in the content of the posttest essay. Theoretical and educational implications of these findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Reading Research Quarterly is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study examined the influence of morphological instruction in an eye-tracking English vocabulary recognition task. Sixty-eight freshmen enrolled in an English course and received either traditional or morphological instruction for learning English vocabulary. The experimental part of the study was conducted over two-hour class periods for seven weeks. To investigate the effects of morphological instruction on English vocabulary learning, all participants completed an English vocabulary recognition task. Fixation time and path during recognition were recorded with an eye-tracking device. A comparison between the post-test performances of both groups showed that the experimental group obtained a considerably higher score on the target eye-tracking vocabulary test. The results of the eye-tracking record showed that participants who received morphological instruction had longer fixation times on the vocabulary and morpheme areas compared with the group that received traditional instruction. In addition, the experimental group had dense fixation paths on the morpheme areas of vocabulary. These results indicate that participants who received morphological instruction considered the morphemes as inferring references to read and inferred unknown words with greater success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the effects of background knowledge on Chinese word processing during silent reading by monitoring adult readers' eye movements. Both higher knowledge (physics major) and lower knowledge (nonphysics major) graduate students were given physics texts to read. Higher knowledge readers spent less time rereading and had lower regression rates on unfamiliar physics words and common words in physics texts than did lower knowledge readers; they also had shorter gaze durations and fewer first-pass fixations on familiar physics words than on unfamiliar physics words. For unfamiliar physics words and common words, both groups predominantly fixated first on the beginnings of words when they made multiple fixations on a word and on a left-of-centre location when they fixated only once on a word. These findings suggest that both groups comprise mature readers with strong language concepts. However, differences in background knowledge led to different reading processes at different stages of reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined how eye movements during scene viewing are modulated by adopting psychological perspectives in both adults with autism spectrum disorders ( ASD) and typically developing adults. In the current study, participants viewed house scenes with either non-perspective-taking (look for valuable items/features of the house that need fixing) or perspective-taking instructions (imagine that you are a burglar/repairman) while their eye movements were recorded. The eye movement measures revealed that for the 'look for the valuable items' and burglar perspective task, the ASD group showed typical relevance effects (the preference to look at schema-relevant compared with schema-irrelevant targets) in their eye movements. However, we found subtle processing differences between the groups that were related to initial orienting to and processing of schema-relevant items for the 'look for the features that need fixing' and the repairman perspective-taking task. There was an absence of a relevance effect for the ASD group for the repairman perspective and its non-perspective-taking equivalent instruction showing that the identification of items relevant to those schemas was more difficult for the ASD group. The present findings suggest that resolving ambiguity may be a defining feature of complex information processing deficits in ASD. Autism Res 2014, 7: 84-93. © 2013 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the online process of reading and the offline learning from an illustrated science text. The authors examined the effects of using a concrete or abstract picture to illustrate a text and adopted eye-tracking methodology to trace text and picture processing. They randomly assigned 59 eleventh-grade students to 3 reading conditions: (a) text only; (b) text with a concrete illustration; and (c) text with an abstract illustration in a pretest, immediate, and delayed posttest design. Results showed that the text illustrated by either the concrete or the abstract picture led to better learning than did the text alone. Eye-fixation data revealed that the abstract illustration promoted more efficient processing of the text. Analyses of the gaze shifts between the 2 types of external representation indicated that the readers of the text with the abstract illustration made a greater effort to integrate verbal and pictorial information. Furthermore, relations between online and offline measures emerged. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose – QuikScan is an innovative text format that employs three prominent signaling devices – summaries, headings, and access cues – to make the reading of medium-to-long texts more productive. The experiments reported in this paper aim to examine the claim that QuikScan contributes to text recall. Design/methodology/approach – In two consecutive experiments a QuikScanned text (experimental condition) was compared to a non-QuickScanned text (control condition). In Experiment one, 41 university students read the text and then answered ten open recall questions. In Experiment two, 58 university students read the text and then wrote a summary and answered four recall questions. Findings – In Experiment one, a statistically significant overall effect on text recall favoring QuikScan was found. Detailed analyses revealed that QuikScan mainly affected the readers' responses to higher-order questions (d = 1.24). Experiment two showed that QuikScan led to significantly higher recall scores for the summaries. Just as in the first experiment, a strong effect on the higher-order questions was found (d = 1.27). Research limitations/implications – Further studies of QuikScan should include studies in naturalistic settings and should address selective reading and information navigation as well as text recall. SARA, a recent comprehensive theory of signaling, makes it possible to identify the individual functions of QuikScan's signaling devices and conduct revealing studies of QuikScan. Practical implications – QuikScan and other innovations that improve the reading experience can potentially increase the willingness of readers to read longer documents. Originality/value – QuikScan provides a unique combination of signaling devices. It can facilitate access and enhance text comprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prereading questions can be an effective tool for directing students' learning. However, it is not always clear what the online effects of a set of prereading questions will be. In two experiments, this study investigated whether readers direct additional attention to and learn more from sentences that are potentially relevant to a set of prereading questions. Eye-tracking data indicated that participants directed additional attention (as indicated by first-pass reinspection and lookback duration) to sentences that were potentially relevant to the prereading questions they had received. Participants also learned more information from these sentences (as indicated by free recall rates). Judgment data suggested that the featural similarity (both lexical and semantic) of a sentence to a prereading question can be a strong indicator that a sentence will be deemed potentially relevant by readers. Results are discussed with respect to an account of instructional effects in which featural similarity drives early attentional allocation through memory-based processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Reading Research Quarterly is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

There are various elements in designing e-teaching materials that could have an impact in raising the efficiency of e-learning. This paper is based on the experiments aiming to investigate whether there are certain positions on the monitor in which students are able to better perceive and/or remember e-teaching materials. Our research was carried out at the Juraj Dobrila University of Pula. Participants were first year students attending the teacher education programme (aged 19.5 - 20.5). The research design included two pre-experimental groups and one experimental group. The monitor was virtually divided into 24 zones. Students read the teaching material displayed on the screen; in each reading four texts in different positions were used. The relative ease/difficulty of remembering the text was taken into account by introducing different ponders to each text. Regarding the memory efficiency, our results show statistically significant differences between certain screen positions (these differences ranged from +29.6% to -42.6% from the average result). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work examined how adjunct displays influence college readers' moment-by-moment processing of text and the products of reading, using reading time (Experiments 1 & 2), and think-aloud methodologies (Experiment 3). Participants did or did not study a diagram before reading a text. Overall, the reading time data, think-aloud data, and recall data were consistent with the no-increased-effort hypothesis, which states that a diagram can facilitate comprehension, although readers may not engage in more effortful online processing. These data suggest that studying a diagram before reading can improve memory for an expository text without necessarily increasing online effort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors examined whether relevance instructions compensate for differences in verbal ability on measures of reading time, text recall, and sentence recognition. College students (n = 81) with higher and lower verbal ability were assigned randomly to 1 of 2 relevance-instruction conditions before reading a text. They asked participants in each condition to focus on different categories of information within the same text. Relevant information took longer to read and was recalled and recognized better than nonrelevant information. Readers with higher verbal ability read faster and recalled and recognized more information correctly than did those readers with lower verbal ability. Results support the noncompensatory hypothesis, which states that relevance instructions and verbal ability make independent contributions to resource allocation and learning. Readers with lower verbal ability may need additional support even when given prereading relevance instructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The line of insight research methods that have high temporal and surface resolution is not large—these are EEGs, EPs, and fMRI, as well as their combinations and various options for assessing temporal events of random understanding. The objective of this research was to study the classification of insight for visual illusory images consisting of several objects simultaneously according to the analysis of early, middle, late, and ultra-late components (up to 1000 ms) of event-related potentials (ERPs). ERP research on 42 healthy subjects (men) aged 20–28 years was performed. The stimuli were a line of visual images with an incomplete set of signs, as well as images-illusions, which, with different perceptions, represent different images. The results showed the similarity of the tests to correct recognition of fragments of unrecognition and double images. At the intermediate stage of perception (100–200 ms), in both cases, the activity of the central and frontal cortex decreased, mainly in the left hemisphere. At the later stages of information processing (300–500 ms), the temporal-parietal and occipital brain parts on the right were activated, with the difference that when double objects were perceived, this process expanded to 700–800 ms with the activation of the central and occipital fields of the right hemisphere. Outcomes allowed discussing two possible options for actualizing the mechanisms of long-term memory that ensure the formation of insight—the simultaneous perception of images as part of an illusion. The first of them is associated with the inhibition of the frontal cortex at the stage of synthesis of information flows, with the subsequent activation of the occipital brain parts. The second variant is traditional and manifests itself in the activation of the frontal brain areas, with the subsequent excitation of all brain fields by the mechanisms of exhaustive search. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined whether 10–12-year-old children use two reading strategies to aid their text comprehension: (1) distinguishing between important and unimportant words; and (2) resolving anaphoric references. Of interest was the question to what extent use of these reading strategies was predictive of reading comprehension skill over and above decoding skill and vocabulary. Reading strategy use was examined by the recording of eye fixations on specific target words. In contrast to less successful comprehenders, more successful comprehenders invested more processing time in important than in unimportant words. On the other hand, they needed less time to determine the antecedent of an anaphor. The results suggest that more successful comprehenders build a more effective mental model of the text than less successful comprehenders in at least two ways. First, they allocate more attention to the incorporation of goal-relevant than goal-irrelevant information into the model. Second, they ascertain that the text model is coherent and richly connected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although working memory capacity is an important contributor to reading comprehension performance, it is not the only contributor. Studies have shown that epistemic knowledge (or knowledge about knowledge and learning) is related to comprehension success and may enable low-span readers to compensate for their limited resources. By comparing the eye movements of epistemically mature versus epistemically naïve low-span readers, this study provided evidence for how the compensation occurs. Metacognitively mature low-span readers spent more time engaged in selective backtracking to unfamiliar and task-relevant text information. These selective look-backs would have reinstated the difficult and important information into working memory, thereby allowing these readers to offset some of the disadvantages of a limited temporary storage capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

College students' strategies to discriminate relevant from irrelevant information in algebra story problems were identified and compared to strategies used by younger students in previous studies. College students identified numbers relevant for solution (Experiment 1) or provided verbal reports as they computed answers (Experiment 2). Type of information examined, sequence and duration of examination, and verbal reports were analyzed. College students' strategies were similar to those of younger students (using specific semantic features, using the question, discriminating during reading, rereading, transitional strategies). Students used multiple strategies across problems. Multiple strategies within a single problem occurred more frequently on problems with transitional strategies. An exploratory analysis indicated that students were aware of their strategies and consistently monitored and evaluated their strategic processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Excessive engagement with (increasingly prevalent) loot boxes within games has consistently been linked with disordered gambling and/or gaming. The importance of recognising and managing potential risks associated with loot box involvement means understanding contributing factors is a pressing research priority. Given that motivations for gaming and gambling have been informative in understanding risky engagement with those behaviours, this qualitative study investigated motivations for buying loot boxes, through in-depth interviews with 28 gamers from across the UK. A reflexive thematic analysis categorised reasons for buying into seven "themes"; opening experience; value of box contents; game-related elements; social influences; emotive/impulsive influences; fear of missing out; triggers/facilitators. These themes are described in detail and discussed in relation to the existing literature and motivation theories. This study contributes to understanding ways in which digital items within loot boxes can be highly valued by purchasers, informing the debate around parallels with gambling. Findings that certain motivations were disproportionately endorsed by participants with symptoms of problematic gambling has potential implications for policy and warrants further study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]